The Livestock and Forage Centre of Excellence held its annual field day at Clavet, Sask. despite blustery weather on June 18.
Attendees took in presentations outdoors on genetics and genomics, managing forage, water and drought, plus feedlot health and management. A hot topic of conversation was the drought — or lack thereof. Much of the current research at the University of Saskatchewan focuses on drought.
“Yes, we’re getting pretty good rainfall in 2024. But drought is just around the corner,” said Bart Lardner, Ministry of Agriculture Strategic Research Program Chair in Cow-Calf and Forage Systems at the University of Saskatchewan.
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Some of the research topics included the role of serotonin in acute interstitial pneumonia, maximizing wheat straw in cattle diets supplemented with canola or flax screenings, soil moisture dynamics in grazing systems, economical salinity remediation strategies and genetics and fat deposition.
In the afternoon, Brian Perillat, agribusiness specialist at Bullseye Feeds, delivered a keynote covering beef cattle markets.
“There’s a lot of awesome research. There’s a lot of excitement here,” Perillat said. “It’s certainly a lot more exciting when we’re getting paid these kinds of prices for calves.”
